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Rafts, baffles and clouds: the three types of acoustic ceiling panel, and which suits your space.
Raft, baffle or cloud? There's no settled vocabulary, so the real question is how the felt hangs. Here are the three ways a felt panel hangs from a ceiling, what each does to echo and which suits your space.
Shop for an acoustic ceiling and you meet a wall of words. Raft, baffle, cloud, fin, island. It reads like the shipping forecast, and no two people seem to mean quite the same thing by any of it. There's no settled vocabulary, so the words are a poor place to start. What actually matters is simpler: how the felt is hung. A felt panel can hang three ways below a ceiling, and the way it hangs decides what it's for, how it meets the sound and how much work it is to plan and fix.
This guide sets out the three, horizontal, vertical and interconnected, so you can look past the label and choose by the space you have. Once you know which orientation suits your room, the product name sorts itself out.
The three ways felt hangs from a ceiling.
The quickest way to tell the three apart is to look at where the wire attaches. That single detail decides the orientation.
Horizontal, what people call a raft or a cloud.
The felt lies flat, its face to the room, and the wires drop to that broad face. It floats as a low plane a short distance below the structural ceiling.
Horizontal suits a room where ceiling height is the constraint. The shallow profile adds a soft surface without eating head height, so it works where you can't afford to bring the ceiling down. It reads as a calm floating feature rather than a bold gesture.
It's also the easiest of the three to plan. A horizontal panel comes as a coverage area, a square, a hexagon, a circle, sized like 1200 by 1200, and it hangs on four wires. You work out how many panels fill your ceiling and you're most of the way there.
Horizontal also earns its place at the other extreme. In a tall volume with height to spare, a field of flat rafts hung at one level brings a soft plane down into the room and settles the long reflections a high ceiling leaves ringing, without costing any usable height.
Vertical, what people call a baffle or a fin.
The felt stands on its edge, faces to the walls, and the wires attach along the narrow top profile. Hung in rows, each leaf is a soft fin set across the path the sound travels.
Vertical suits tall or wide open spaces. A run of fins calms a large floor without building a solid visual wall, and in a high room the fins hang down into the volume where the sound is. This is where our acoustic ceiling baffles live: the Drape, Ruche, Shear, Twill, Crease and Crimp kits, and Rectangle blades ordered by quantity for long runs.
Vertical is the one that takes real planning, and that's why it has its own guide. You choose how many blades, how far apart to space them, how far to drop them and how to hang them. See the vertical hanging guide for the full method.
Interconnected, what people call a structure, a grid or an island.
Boards are slotted through each other at right angles into one rigid structure, and the wires attach at the joints where the boards cross. It faces several ways at once and reads as a sculptural feature.
Interconnected suits a feature moment, a reception, an atrium, a space where the ceiling is meant to be looked at. It packs the most felt into a given area and catches light across its faces.
Despite the assembly looking complex, it's simple to plan and fix. Like a horizontal raft it comes as a coverage area, and the whole structure typically hangs from four wires, at the joints where the boards cross. Our grid baffles are built this way, as ready-to-hang kits in 12 shapes.
How each meets the sound.
A hard, flat ceiling reflects sound straight back down into the room, and in a space with hard floors and glass that reflected sound builds up and makes speech harder to follow. All three orientations work on the same principle: soft felt hung in the room, with both faces open, takes energy out of those reflections so the room settles.
Where they differ is how they meet the sound. A horizontal raft sits under the ceiling and takes the reflection at the point it forms. A run of vertical fins stands in the way of sound crossing an open floor and softens it as it passes. An interconnected structure packs the most material into one place for the strongest single effect.
The measured evidence: with a 400mm air gap behind it, the lab mounting closest to a raft hung below a ceiling, the 24mm PET felt board reaches Class A, αw 0.90. That's our calculation from the lab's results (E400, to ASTM C423), where it rated NRC 0.90. Flat with no air gap behind it (Type A, to EN ISO 354 and ASTM C423), it's NRC 0.65. Both are figures per square metre of board. A hung raft or fin also takes sound on its back face and edges, so read them as a conservative guide rather than a measured figure for the hung panel. Reaction to fire is Class B-s1,d0 to BS EN 13501-1, so felt can be specified in commercial interiors where a fire class is required. For how to read and compare these figures, see how to read acoustic panel ratings.
One honest limit applies to all three. These panels absorb sound within a room. They don't stop sound passing through a wall or between floors. If the problem is sound coming through a wall or floor, this is the wrong tool. If the problem is a live, echoey room, it's the right one.
Which is easiest to plan and fix.
This is the part that's easy to overlook, and it's often what decides the job. The three orientations aren't equal in how much work they are to size and hang.
Horizontal and interconnected are the easy ones. Both come as a coverage area, so you size them straight against the ceiling you have, and both have few fixing points. A horizontal panel hangs on four wires. An interconnected structure hangs on about four, at four of its cross joints.
Vertical is the involved one. It's a set of separate blades, so you decide the blade count, the spacing and the drop yourself. Each blade hangs on its own pair of wires, so the fixing count climbs with the blade count.
The same 1200 by 1200 patch of ceiling shows what is at stake. As a single horizontal panel it hangs on four wires. As one interconnected structure it also hangs on four. As eight vertical blades it needs sixteen, a pair per blade. None of that makes vertical worse, the fins do a job the flat panel can't, but it does mean vertical rewards a bit of planning up front.
For the full vertical method, blade count, spacing, drop and wires, see the vertical hanging guide.
Which suits which space.
A short way to land on the right orientation:
- A low or standard-height ceiling where you can't lose height, and you want a calm flat feature: horizontal.
- A wide open floor or a tall volume where you want to soften a large area without a solid wall: vertical.
- A reception, atrium or feature space where the ceiling itself should be the statement: interconnected.
| Horizontal | Vertical | Interconnected | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Often called | Raft, cloud | Baffle, fin | Grid, island, structure |
| Best for | Low or standard ceilings | Wide floors and tall rooms | Receptions, atriums, feature ceilings |
| Wires per 1200 x 1200 | 4 | 16, a pair per blade | About 4 |
| Planning | Easy, sized by area | Involved: count, spacing and drop | Easy, sized by area |
| Look | A calm floating plane | Rows of fins | Sculptural |
All three come in recycled PET felt, made to order in the UK, in up to 48 colours, so the choice is about the space and the effect, not the material. For an office, our office acoustics guide shows where the ceiling fits alongside wall panels and screens. For a restaurant, bar or café, see the room you can't change much.
Frequently asked questions.
What are the three types of acoustic ceiling panel?
They're the three ways a felt panel can hang below a ceiling. Horizontal, a flat panel lying face down, often called a raft or a cloud. Vertical, a fin hung on its edge in rows, often called a baffle. Interconnected, boards slotted into a rigid structure, often called a grid or an island.
Is a ceiling raft the same as a baffle?
They're the same felt hung two ways. A raft is horizontal, flat with its face to the room. A baffle is vertical, on its edge, usually in rows. The words follow the orientation rather than a strict rulebook, so it's not worth getting stuck on which is which. Choose horizontal to keep the room's height, vertical where you have height to give and want a row of fins.
What is a ceiling cloud?
Cloud is another word for a horizontal raft, a flat panel that floats below the ceiling with open space around it. There's no fixed technical difference between a cloud and a raft.
Which type absorbs the most sound?
It depends far more on how much felt is in the room than on the shape. More coverage does more, whichever orientation you choose. Our 24mm board reaches Class A, αw 0.90, with a 400mm air gap, the lab mounting closest to a raft hung below a ceiling. That's our calculation from the lab's results, where it rated NRC 0.90. Flat with no air gap behind it, it's NRC 0.65. A hung panel also takes sound on its back face and edges, so treat these as conservative figures for a raft. An interconnected structure packs the most material into one spot, but a wider field of rafts or fins can do as much across a whole ceiling.
Do acoustic ceiling panels soundproof a room?
No. They absorb sound within a room and reduce echo. They don't stop sound passing through a wall or between floors.
What is an acoustic ceiling system?
It's the whole set-up that holds felt below a ceiling: the panels, the wires and the fixings. Ours are suspended acoustic panels. A raft hangs from a flat plate screwed into its top face, so nothing shows from the floor, on 4 wires for a square, circle or hexagon and 6 for a rectangle or oval. Blade kits come with their rails, grippers, wires and ceiling anchors. Grid kits come with their grippers and ceiling anchors.
Which type is easiest to install?
Horizontal and interconnected. Both come as a coverage area and typically hang on four wires. Vertical is more involved, since you size the blade count, spacing and drop yourself, and each blade hangs on its own pair of wires.
